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The Hollywood archives are packed with movies that, for myriad reasons, have somehow slipped between the cracks, never to be heard from again.

No film sums up that unfortunate group more than 1994's The Fantastic Four, a property now getting rebooted for a second time with a lavish budget and inescapable marketing campaign. We look back at seven movies the industry (and the filmmakers behind them) wants to sweep under the carpet.

1. The Fantastic Four

Bernd Eichinger snapped up the film rights to Marvel's first family in the '80s for a pittance, and with the clock ticking down on his ownership he teamed up with B-movie specialist Roger Corman to produce a $1 million picture in less than a month. With a cast of unknowns and music video director Oley Sassone at the helm, The Fantastic Four ended up getting buried by Marvel in a bid for brand protection.

Avi Arad,...

You haven't seen it -- almost no one has -- but there's a good chance that you've heard of "The Day The Clown Cried," because it's one of the most famous unreleased movies in history. Directed by and starring Jerry Lewis, the film involved a German circus clown arrested by the Gestapo after mocking Hitler, who is eventually forced by the Nazis to perform and help lead Jewish children to concentration camp gas chambers. Yes, you read that right. The film went into production in 1972, but was initially held up due to a falling-out between the financiers. Once completed, the film was screened privately, emerging as a disaster that makes "Life Is Beautiful" look about as sensitive as "Shoah." "Simpsons" veteran Harry Shearer was at one screening, and was quoted as saying "This movie is so drastically wrong, its pathos and its comedy are so wildly misplaced, that you could not,...

Footage from Jerry Lewis' infamous 1972 film "The Day The Clown Cried" has surfaced online. Written by Joan O'Brien and Charles Denton and Lewis -- who also directed -- "The Day The Clown Cried" is about a German circus clown named Helmut Doork who winds up performing for Jewish children at a concentration camp. Doork's routine is used to help lead the children to their deaths in the gas chamber. "The Day The Clown Cried" was never released because Lewis was unhappy with the final product.

"It was all bad and it was bad because I lost the magic," Lewis said about "The Day The Clown Cried" during this year's Cannes Film Festival. "You will never see it, no-one will ever see it, because I am embarrassed at the poor work."

One person who has seen Lewis' lost film is comedian Harry Shearer. "If you say, 'Jerry Lewis, clown in a concentration camp,...

Not many people have seen Jerry Lewis' The Day The Clown Cried. And David has a good idea as to why that is...

Legendary comedian Jerry Lewis is known for a lot of things. When he first exploded on the scene in the late 40s with Dean Martin, they were the rock stars of comedy. Whether performing onstage or starring together in movies, they were the hottest act in show business.

When Lewis went solo in the late 50s, he had big success writing, directing and acting in a number of classic comedies, peaking in 1963 with the original Nutty Professor. (Julius Kelp, the uber nerdy title character, was the inspiration for Professor John Frink on The Simpsons.)

In modern day, you still see Lewis every Labor Day raising money on his telethon for muscular dystrophy, and you see his comedic influence continue through generations of funny people, from Woody Allen to Jerry Seinfeld.